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Everything's Better With Monkeys
alt title(s): Everythings Better With Monkeys; Everything Is Better With Monkeys
◊
"Superman! Bad news from the Gorilla Galaxy!"

More fun than a barrel of monkeys!
Old proverb, setting the bar impossibly high

All great films have monkeys!
—Chester A. Bum

If I had a million dollars,
I'd buy you a monkey,
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
Barenaked Ladies, "If I Had a Million Dollars"

Some people find apes, monkeys, and lemurs inherently amusing. Perhaps it's the fact that they mirror humanity so closely while still maintaining the visage of a wild animal, perhaps it's just easier to anthropomorphize them, or maybe people just like poop-tossing jokes? Whatever the reason, there's a cyclic period of people being fascinated by primates that always seems to take the world of fiction by storm.

This has long been noted by comic book authors, who, during the Silver Age, took every opportunity to insert, turn people into, or otherwise add gorillas to a superhero story. In fact, DC Comics had a policy at the time limiting the number of "monkey" issues per month, to prevent everybody from doing it!

This is sometimes associated with the tastes of the Lowest Common Denominator, who view the ultimate form of entertainment as a cigar-smoking chimp wearing a diaper and top hat that is riding a tricycle.

A chimp with a diaper— Ha ha... Wait, we didn't imagine that until just now. Ha ha ha!

This trope is named for this Superdickery.com subpage. And yes, we know it ought to be "Everything's Better With Non-Human Primates" too.

The actual editor of the site explains here how untrue this trope is. Speaking from personal experience, "Monkeys are not cute in real life, they are evil little bastards. On top of that, they carry the Hepatitis B virus." (And AIDS came from a virus in monkeys.)

See also Killer Space Monkey, Maniac Monkeys, and Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot (which invokes this trope quite often); also check out Everythings Better With Penguins, Turtle Power and Everythings Better With Dinosaurs for the avian and saurian equivalents of this trope. See Cymbal Banging Monkey for the exception to this trope.

Examples

Advertising
  • A very well-known series of adverts for PG Tips Tea in Britain involved a group of trained chimpanzees who acted in the roles of a suburban family, with dubbed voices. Despite their popularity, these were axed in the 1990s over fears of animal cruelty allegations. They have since been replaced with the sock monkey (or Muuuuun-keigh! as Johnny Vegas pronounces it) inherited from ITV Digital, allowing a thematic continuation.
  • The latter arises from a series of adverts by Vegas (playing a character called Al) and the Muuuunkeigh for ITV Digital, which went under despite giving away free sock monkeys with every subscription (some people signed up purely for that reason). The Al-Muuunkeigh combo was briefly transferred to The BBC for Comic Relief, then bought by PG Tips.
  • The Cadburys "Gorilla" ad. The entire ad consists of a man in a disturbingly realistic gorilla costume drumming along to Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight", and relies on this trope in order to generate publicity (which it has). Check it out.
  • "It's the Rolling Rock Beer Ape! And he's here to save the day!"
  • This classic '70s ad for American Tourister Luggage.
  • There's something inherently hilarious about a belligerent gorilla swinging a sleeping man around by his hair in this classic Wella Shock Waves ad from The Nineties.

Anime

Comic Books
  • Many, many superheroes and supervillains are intelligent apes of some sort. Notables include:
    • Congorilla: Sacred golden gorilla who serves as the alter ego of Congo Bill, a British adventurer, courtesy of mind-swapping rings.
    • Detective Chimp: Exactly What It Says On The Tin.
    • Gorilla Grodd: Psychic would-be world conqueror from a hidden city of superintelligent gorillas. Gorilla City's actually kind of a big deal in DC; King Solovar (not quite The King Of Town) was an important figure in the original Crisis Crossover.
    • The Mod Gorilla Boss: He's one hip swinger, clyde, and you'd better believe that he's the big man behind the criminal underworld in Bludhaven. And that he thinks vertical stripes are cool.
    • Monsieur Mallah: Superintelligent machine-gun-toting communist revolutionary homosexual French-speaking gorilla surgeon in love with a (male) brain in a jar.
    • Sam Simeon: Comic artist and half of Angel and the Ape. No points for guessing which half.
    • Titano: Giant chimp with kryptonite-laser-shooting eyes.
    • The Ultra-Humanite: Psychic Mad Scientist who had his brain surgically placed in a mutant gorilla's body.
    • Arkhampedia has an article on the subject.
Note that all the above examples are from DC Comics. Around 1940, DC fell head-over-heels in love with gorillas and has never recovered.
  • Marvel has at least one example of its own: Gorilla Man, a soldier of fortune who got turned into an immortal gorilla. And a different Gorilla Man, who has a human head and a gorilla's body. While he's technically a scientist, he's rarely portrayed as anything but the dumbest, most single-minded thug scientist ever.
    • Not to mention how the Beast's original thing was his incredibly simian physique, causing him to look like a shaved gorilla.
    • And the Red Ghost's super-apes, a gorilla, orangutan, and mandrill with super strength, shapeshifting, and gravity powers (respectively) from the same cosmic ray storm that gave the Fantastic Four their powers.
    • And there is also Initiative member Gorilla Girl, The Gibbon, Gorr the Golden Gorilla and the Beasts of Berlin.
    • Julius Schwartz was parodied in J2 by the gangster-turned-talking gorilla Big Julie.
    • This doesn't apply to every ape, though; Giant monster-turned-regular-sized-monster Gorgilla is actually kind of a loser, like the rest of his teammates in the Fin Fang Four. And Moon Boy (of and Devil Dinosaur fame) is just too goofy to be cool.
  • Nearly every superhero during the Silver Age was turned into a gorilla, at one time or another. The best way to tell if someone's doing an Homage or Affectionate Parody of the Silver Age is to see if there are any gorillas around.
    • Legend has it that this trend began when a DC Comics executive noticed sales spikes during months where monkeys and/or apes were on the cover. Whether or not this is true is unknown, but Peter David, in the same forward quoted above, insists that it's true, and even names the exec: Julius Schwartz, creator of Barry Allen and Hal Jordan, among others.
      • Of course, this all culminated in the JLApe crossover, where the entire Justice League were turned into gorillas, even in their own comics. Before you ask, it was actually in the late nineties.
      • Later mimicked by Marvel Apes. Yes. (Note that Spider-Man, who has a tail, is not an ape, having clearly become a spider monkey.)
      • Though Marvel Apes is explicitly an alternate universe where everyone is a monkey except the Inhumans and Sue Storm.
  • Ambush Bug: Year None #5: "Apes on covers sell comics. Apes on covers sell comics. Apes on covers..."
  • A particularly long-running take on the above occurred in the Eclipse comic Zot!. Due to an early run-in with a deevolutionary cult, one of the characters turned into a chimpanzee every time he visited the alternate earth of the titular character. He didn't mind as much as you'd think.
  • The third collection of The Adventures Of Barry Ween, Boy Genius, "Monkey Tales," involves: a superintelligent otherdimensional gorilla, a tribe of sasquatch, and a hyper-ebola monkey. (That's three separate stories, mind.) In the fourth collection, "Gorilla Warfare," the characters travel to the dimension the superintelligent gorilla came from, where he (the gorilla) is worshiped as a god.
  • America's Best Comics has Tom Strong's superintelligent gorilla friend King Solomon, and the Comic Within A Comic Weeping Gorilla in Promethea.
  • Chris Sims' Exterminape is a tongue-in-cheek example, where the main character is a talking gorilla who discovered firearms shortly after learning how to use simple tools and quickly became a badass assassin who likes to show human women his "jungle love".
  • The graphic novel Grease Monkey features biologically uplifted gorillas working on a space station, undergoing preparations for an alien invasion.
  • Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy, has admitted he likes drawing monkeys. Especially gorillas with bolts in their neck, which is why Hermann von Klempt has a series of enhanced gorillas ("Kriegaffen", or "war apes") as aides. In addition, Count Guarino is turned into a chimpanzee during "Box Full of Evil". A monkey that carries a pistol and tortures Abe with a burning poker.
    • The comic book series Proof about a Bigfoot who is a paranormal investigator is just "Hellboy AS A MONKEY!"
  • In I Feel Sick by Jhonen Vasquez, the main character Devi, an artist who is working on cover art for a book, is instructed to put a monkey on the cover. The book in question features no monkeys, it is about children who get evil powers from gnawing on contaminated aluminum siding, but research shows that people love monkeys and a monkey on the cover will just about double sales.
  • Mega City One in Judge Dredd has a simian ethnic enclave (named Apetown), and an Orangutan named Dave was once elected Mayor of the city. He ended up being assassinated.
  • Matt Fraction's Mantooth is about a super-spy gorilla who's a super-smooth ladies man.
  • The Savage Dragon features Brainiape, an evil gorilla with a Brain In A Jar attached to his head. That has Psychic Powers. A crossover with the aforementioned Hellboy revealed that the brain in Brainiape was... Well, given that Hellboy was in it, Take a wild guess.
  • Squirrel Girl thinks that everything is better with monkeys.
  • Y: The Last Man, or, as it should've been called, &: The Last Male Monkey. Seriously, if you read it, you'll get it.
  • The Umbrella Academy loves chimps. Random intelligent chimps are shown throughout the comic, most notably Dr. Pogo who assists the main characters, and to a much lesser extent, Detective Body. The reason as to why there are intelligent chimps randomly about is never explained.
    • Gerard Way just likes monkeys, so this troper thinks. The Breakfast Monkey, anyone?
  • The Filth has Dmitri, a talking chimp who also happens to be a Soviet assassin. He offed JFK.
  • Ragdoll used some of his mercenary money to buy "a monkey house and a variety of little monkey outfits" for his monkeys. He dressed them up as his team members, covered himself with monkey chow and giggled as they attacked him. It was unsettling and hilarious.
  • The villains of The Black Island keep a gorilla named Ranko to guard their island base.
  • Gaston Lagaffe onces gives Fantasio (of Spirou And Fantasio) three circus-trained chimpanzees as a birthday present. They proceed to wreak havoc in his office.
  • Monkeyman and O'Brien is about an intelligent gorilla from another dimension.
  • Liberty Meadows' artist Frank Cho chooses to depict himself as a chimpanzee.

Film
  • Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back had the titular duo adopt an orangutan for some reason. (This was hinted at back at the end of Mallrats, where the last scene shows Jay and Silent Bob heading off into the distance with the orangutan, named Suzanne, in tow. No explanation is given for this, nor was the ape ever seen prior. It seemed to be an excuse to shoehorn Weezer's "Suzanne" over the ending montage.) Sexy lesbian jewel thieves were involved.
    • Well, for the record, they were sexy jewel thieves, but they were not lesbian. Well, at least two of them weren't. One was seducing a pizza guy later on in the movie, while another became Jay's main love interest.
    • A similar sequence also appeared in the Jay and Silent Bob comic-book miniseries and the Clerks cartoon.
    • Lampshaded in the film. In one sequence, we see Shannen Doherty in a Scream-esque scene, in which she is attacked by Ghostface but manages to knock him out, and unmasks him. It's the orangutan:
      Shannen: What?! Fucking Miramax... CUT!
      Wes Craven: What?
      Shannen: A fucking monkey? Jesus, Wes, are you even trying anymore?
      Wes: But the research says people love monkeys!
      (Jay and Silent Bob take the monkey and run)
      Jay: We love this monkey!
      Wes: See?
  • Disney has a couple examples as well:
    • Disney comics feature the monkey mad scientists Ecks, Doublex, and Triplex as enemies of Mickey Mouse. Another comics pal of Mickey's is the tough robot operator Sam Simian, seemingly a gorilla.
      • There's one story where Mickey and Sam take on the three Professors. Apart from Mickey himself, everyone in the story is a monkey!
    • Aladdin had Abu as Aladdin's sidekick.
    • Tarzan was based on Tarzan of the Apes, but Disney did work the monkey trope into a wacky lather in the film. In the series and the sequels, the monkey level is still present but nowhere near as effective.
    • The Lion King had the shaman-type, Rafiki, who was an African vision-having kung-fu mandrill.
    • King Louie from The Jungle Book was Disney's original addition to the movie, yet arguably, feels very much as if he belongs to Mowgli's world. The original book does, however, have a scene where the monkeys try to make Mowgli their leader, and won't let him go.
      • And he worked out very well in TaleSpin.
    • A few Disney geeks have a theory: this trope is the only acceptable reason why there are "lemurs" in the Late Cretaceous period in Dinosaur.
    • The undead monkey from the Pirates Of The Caribbean movies.
  • Nor can we forget the flying monkeys of The Wizard Of Oz.
  • Clint Eastwood's Every Which Way But Loose was about a long-haul trucker and his pet orangutan.
    • Eastwood once told a joke about that film (in which the ape was a chimp, according to him); he enjoyed the ape's company so much he attempted to buy it after filming was completed. The animal's keeper asked how much Eastwood made, and upon learning it was $5000 a day or some such, replied "Well Mr. Eastwood, the ape likes you too. But he makes $6000 a day, so perhaps he should buy you".
    • Not to mention its sequel, Any Which Way You Can.
  • Probably the most famous giant monster not to be a dinosaur was King Kong.
  • Mighty Joe Young.
  • Outbreak unashamedly featured a cute little monkey who was the plague bringer of doom.
  • Planet Of The Apes.
  • ''28 Days Later'' combines this with the uncanny valley-esque effect of a humanoid animal to make one scary-ass scene. Test animals unnerve us, monkeys amuse us, but-"The chimps are infected."
  • A scene of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has Mutt Williams getting stuck in a tree, and being discovered by monkeys that due to having the same "hair" as his, decide to show Mutt vine-swinging and then help him attack the Dirty Communists. Opinions were divided between "it's stupid" ("I used to joke that you could make any movie better by adding monkeys or explosions to it. I take back the part about the monkeys.") and "it's fun" ("What I want is goofy action--lots of it. (...) And throw in lots of monkeys.").
    • Third opinion: friggin hilarious.
    • Of course, a monkey appears in several scenes of Raiders of the Lost Ark until its greed gets the better of it.
      Sallah: "Bad dates."
    • And of course they eat chilled Monkey brains in Temple of Doom.
  • The upcoming film Space Chimps. Everything's better with Monkeys... in SPACE!
  • Time Of The Apes (like Planet of the Apes, only Japanese and terrible). The film was featured on Mystery Science Theater, as was Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, which involved the main character temporarily inhabiting the body of a baboon as therapy.
  • Inverted in Back To The Future: One of the early drafts of the script for the first movie featured a monkey as Doc Brown's pet instead of Einstein the dog. Apparently it was changed because one of the producers was under the impression that no movie with a monkey in it has ever made a profit.
  • In the Charlie Chaplin film The Circus, one scene featured The Tramp performing a tightrope routine because the regular could not be found. While highly entertaining, especially after The Tramp's safety harness falls off, a group of monkeys that has harassed Chaplin's character throughout the movie decides to get involved, crawling all over him, biting him, and removing his pants.
  • The Toho/Rankin-Bass produced film King Kong Escapes features Mechanikong. Everything's better with ROBOT monkeys.
  • The 2 directors of American Pie insisted on having a monkey in it somewhere as "any film with a monkey in it is twice as good as the same film without a monkey".
  • Ronald Reagan never quite lived down his role opposite a chimp in Bedtime for Bonzo.
  • Truth In Television: Dian Fossey and the movie of her life: Gorillas in the Mist.
  • Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls has a scene with Ace joining a bunch of chimps in a mass exodus from a building, and doing a pretty fair imitation of their movements. Also, gorilla rape to the tune of "The Lion Sleeps". The latter is a case of Did Not Do The Research combined with Rule Of Funny, as gorillas, by and large, have much smaller penises than humans. What? Why are you looking at me like that?
    • And let's not forget about Spike, his monkey sidekick.
  • In The Fall, Charles Darwin (yes, that one—sort of) has a monkey "assistant" that he takes with him everywhere. The monkey dying is the point in the movie that things in Roy's story start to get very dark, very quickly.
  • The Tony Danza vehicle Going Ape.
  • Dino, the sexually impotent gorilla in The Kentucky Fried Movie.
    • Played by the greatest of all (human) simian impersonators, Rick Baker. Baker also essayed the roles of King Kong in the 1976 remake, and Sidney the Gorilla in the Lily Tomlin vehicle The Incredible Shrinking Woman.
  • Inspector Clouseau's first scene in The Return of The Pink Panther proves that his accent gets even funnier when a "minkey" is on the scene, as he argues with an accordion-playing beggar about his pet.
  • Charles Gemora is another actor who made a career of playing gorilla's in older films and movie serials.
  • In the screwball comedy Monkey Business (not to be confused with a Marx Brothers film which has nothing to do with monkeys aside from its title), a monkey breaks into a chemistry lab and accidentally creates a batch of Screwball Serum.
  • The monkey sidekick in Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs.

Literature
  • Hanuman from the Sanskrit epic Ramayana.
    • A mischievous Chaste Hero who burnt the capital city of Sri Lanka to the ground because the ruler ordered his tail cut off.
    • In one version the ruler covered his tail in cloth and oil and set it on fire, and Hanuman, being a god, burst out of his bonds and then lit the city on fire. He left the ruler's brother's house standing though, because he was the only one to say not to kill the messenger.
  • Sun Wukong from the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West, a super-strong, super-fast, regenerating monkey with magic powers who was also a Heroic Sociopath.
  • In L. Frank Baum's The Wizard Of Oz, the winged monkeys. They're more complex characters than those represented in the film, and have more backstory.
  • In Max Brooks' World War Z, the one scene with a monkey popping up is one of the few light moments of the book.
  • The killer apes from Michael Crichton's Congo, trained to crush the heads of humans who approached the lost city.
    • Crichton's novel Next features a talking monkey pretending to be a kid with a skin condition. Really.
  • Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book had a bunch of monkeys, the Bandar-log, most of whom were eaten by Kaa.
    I have taught thee all the Law of the Jungle for all the peoples of the jungle—except the Monkey-Folk who live in the trees. They have no law. They are outcasts. They have no speech of their own, but use the stolen words which they overhear when they listen, and peep, and wait up above in the branches. Their way is not our way. They are without leaders. They have no remembrance. They boast and chatter and pretend that they are a great people about to do great affairs in the jungle, but the falling of a nut turns their minds to laughter and all is forgotten. We of the jungle have no dealings with them. We do not drink where the monkeys drink; we do not go where the monkeys go; we do not hunt where they hunt; we do not die where they die. Hast thou ever heard me speak of the Bandar-log till today?
  • Dean Koontz's Christopher Snow books, Fear Nothing and Seize the Night, feature a tribe of monkeys that are escaped lab animals.
  • HP Lovecraft's "Facts Concerning Sir Arthur Jermyn And His Family". The title character eventually realizes that he is a Half Human Hybrid.
  • Edgar Allan Poe's first tale of Detective Dupin, The Murders in the Rue Morgue. The murderer is an escaped orangutan.
  • According to some sources, the Librarian of Unseen University from Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels was turned into an orangutan because it was the funniest thing Pratchett could think of.
    • But for god's sake, don't call him a monkey!
      • He is somewhat justified in this anger. Orangutans are apes. Great Apes, to be exact.
    • Pratchett is a big fan of orangutans in Real Life, and is a trustee of the Orangutan Foundation, dedicated to preserving the endangered creatures.
  • Terryl Whitlatch's The Katurran Odyssey. That is all ye know or need know.
  • Sue the Gorilla, a gorilla befriended by Forrest Gump and arguably one of the best things about a very, very eventful book. Sue's a boy, by the way.

Live Action TV
  • The sitcom BJ And The Bear was essentially a ripoff of Every Which Way But Loose; it was about a long-haul trucker and his pet chimpanzee.
  • Subverted in an episode of Boston Legal, in which a lawyer attempted to use a case study involving a monkey in one of his closing arguments, but the judge was not impressed.
  • Friends had Ross's pet Capuchin monkey Marcel.
  • The entire premise of Lancelot Link Secret Chimp.("Get that Ape!")
    • Which was apparently based on a series of British commercials for PG Tips Tea — see Advertising.
  • Tin Man's Mobats were a new spin on the Winged Monkeys. Only thing better than flying monkeys? Flying monkeys that spawn from the tattoos on the hot Wicked Witch's boobs!
  • During the premiere of Power Rangers Turbo, Bulk and Skull were turned into chimps by Elgar, midseason, they were turned back to normal by the fumes of one of Divatox's torpedoes.
  • The premiere episode of The Middle Man featured superintelligent genetically engineered lowland gorillas.
    Wendy: Oh no. It's Gorilla Grodd.
  • Rape an ape. The popular show aimed at people who enjoy violence, of a sexual nature, being directed at primates. According to the TV show Time Trumpet this show will start airing some time in the future so all fans of gorilla groping, orangutan oral and rhesus rape should check it out. Seriously.
  • Paul the Gorilla from The Electric Company, companion of Jennifer of The Jungle. No, not that kind of companion...
  • Mork And Mindy had Mork rescuing (or so he thought) a chimp from the zoo. Twice. The first time was just a gag at the beginning of an episode, but the second time was an entire plot.
  • Professor Bobo, the semi-intelligent chimp from MS T3k.
  • On Third Rock From The Sun Doctor Liam Neesam, played by John Cleese, tries to turn the entire population of Earth into monkeys to turn Earth into "Super Monkey World" as an amusement attraction for the rest of the Universe.
  • Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide. In the episode where he tackles the evil monday haze his second (or third) attempt was
    Moze: "Monkey Mondays?"
    Ned: "Monkeys make everything better."
  • Legends of the Hidden Temple: The infamous "Shrine of the Silver Monkey" room is one of the few obstacles on the show that lasted through the entire show's history.
  • A first-season episode of Rescue Me included a subplot in which Tommy Gavin's Uncle Teddy wins a bet against a zookeeper, and Tommy's father (who is living with Teddy at the time) is at pains to keep the animal from ruining the house.
  • Kratts Creatures spinoff Zooboomafoo featured a lemur as a main character. For a few seconds each episode, he'd be an actual lemur, for most of the rest, he'd be a puppet, but then there'd also be these stories with him depicted in claymation.
  • A sketch in Monty Pythons Flying Circus had a gorilla being interviewed for a librarian's position. He is thrown out after he is forced to admit he's really a human librarian wearing a gorilla suit ("...trying to deceive us in order to further your career!").
  • The title character of the short-lived '80s sitcom Mr. Smith was a talking orangutan who worked as a government advisor in Washington, DC.
  • Gerald the Gorilla, in one of the best known Not The Nine O Clock News sketches. Taken onto a talk show by Professor Fielding, to demonstrate how he has taught a wild animal to talk, they quickly descend to bickering like a married couple, while the interviewer looks on in bemusement.
    Professor Fielding: Look, can we get this into some sort of perspective? When I first met Gerald he was completely wild...
    Gerald: Wild? I was absolutely livid!

Comedy
  • One of Dane Cook's stand up routines includes a tangent about how awesome monkeys are.

Music
  • The Barenaked Ladies song "Another Postcard" is about a man who cannot escape an endless stream of anonymous international postcards - all of which feature allegedly humorous photos of chimpanzees in various costumes and poses: "Another postcard with chimpanzees / And every one is addressed to me..."
    • And, of course: "If I had a million dollars / I'd buy you a monkey! / Haven't you always wanted a monkey?"
  • Gorillaz.
  • "Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey", by The Beatles. Although that song is arguably about heroin.
    • Title echoed by the song "Me and My Monkey" by Robbie Williams, in which the protagonist and his talking monkey friend go to Las Vegas.
  • The Monkees.
  • The song "Monkeys and Playbills" from [title of show].
  • "Mechanical Ape!" by The Aquabats is about, as the name suggests, a Humongous Mecha shaped like a gorilla.
  • Chimpanzee Riding On a Segway, bam ba ba bam ba bam!
  • George Michael's "Monkey" ("Why can't you do it? Why can't you set your monkey free?")
  • Peter Gabriel's "Shock the Monkey", the video of which featured a chimpanzee.
  • Beastie Boys - "Brass Monkey" ("Brass monkey, that funky monkey")
  • Dave Matthews Band - "Shake Me Like a Monkey" ("Love me baby shake me like a monkey")
  • Counting Crows - "Monkey" ("Hey monkey, where you been?")
  • Saves The Day - "Monkey" ("The monkey will bite / better eat your poultry")
  • Placebo's "Space Monkey" ("Space monkey in the place to be")
    • And John Prine's song of that title.
  • The punk/alternative band Sprung Monkey.[1]
  • Jonathan Coulton's "Code Monkey", a sympathetic take on the slang term referring to software developers whose work involves no creativity.
  • Ookla the Mok's monkey rock opera, Smell No Evil. All of it.
  • Chuck Berry - "Too Much Monkey Business"
  • Major Lance - "The Monkey Time"
  • The Rolling Stones - "Monkey Man"
    • Bill Wyman's solo album, Monkey Grip
  • Smokey Robinson & the Miracles - "Mickey's Monkey"
  • The Kinks - "Ape Man"
  • The Traveling Wilburys - "Tweeter and the Monkey Man"
  • Bruce Springsteen - "Part Man Part Monkey"
  • The Pixies - "This Monkey's Gone to Heaven"
  • Elvis Costello - "Monkey to Man"
  • Honey Cone - "One Monkey Don't Stop No Show"
  • Widespread Panic - "Sleepy Monkey"
  • Jethro Tull - "Steel Monkey"
  • Steely Dan - "Monkey in Your Soul"
  • Rufus Thomas - "Can Your Monkey Do the Dog?"
  • Aerosmith - "Monkey On My Back"
  • Reel Big Fish - "Monkey Man"
  • Warren Zevon - "Gorilla, You're A Desperado". A zoo gorilla forces Warren to trade places with him. The gorilla ends up depressed, divorced, and playing Warren's guitars.
  • Ray Stevens - "Harry the Hairy Ape"

Newspaper Comics
  • Monkeys are a recurring topic in Get Fuzzy, being a particular obsession of Bucky Katt.
  • Dilbert has Zimbu the monkey, who can speak English and does a good job of making Dilbert look like an inferior worker.
  • Pearls Before Swine often features them.

Professional Wrestling
  • Chikara Pro Wrestling has a wrestler named U.S.Ape, who's your standard All American Face in a monkey suit. His current rival? MosCow, the Bolshevik Bovine, of course. Cows are quite funny, too.

Tabletop Games
  • One faction in the tabletop miniatures game AT-43 are the Karmans, who are gorillas in powered armor.
  • Feng Shui includes among its factions the Jammers, which are intelligent cybernetic monkeys and apes working in concert with the few humans immune to the influence of Chi. Their aim is to destroy every feng shui site in existence so humanity can be "free" from the "tyranny" of Chi, something which may have very bad consequences for the world.
  • The Magic: The Gathering joke set Unhinged featured monkeys, alongside donkeys, as the two major creature types featured. Monkey Monkey Monkey!
  • The Magic: The Gathering design team for Alliances thought that continuity's idea for a race of sentient gorillas was silly, so they made fun of it by putting the word gorilla in every card's name. For example, Force of Will was originally called "Gorilla Gorilla Gorilla Gorilla Gorilla Gorilla Gorilla Gorilla (Stop That)." As an homage to this, the card Sol Grail's name is an anagram of "gorillas".
    • Of course, some of the gorillas (and references to them) still made it into the set as actual cards. In all, nineteen distinct Ape cards have been printed to date (most recently four reprints in the ninth edition of the main set)...not counting those which simply have all creature types.
  • Kroot from the Warhammer 40k use a species called the "Krootox" as a battle and pack animal, it is essentially a big beaked gorilla. More interestingly, the Krootox were once a normal kroot Kindred ("tribe") that used the kroot ability to absorb genes from food to bulk up, eventually becoming non-sentient and stuck in that form.
    • There's also the Jokaero, who are intelligent orangutans...In Space. Though not as prevalent as they once were, they are still important due to their feats of engineering.
  • Rifts features Ape-Boys (genetically-enhanced apes and monkeys) as a playable race.
  • The fourth set of Monsterpocalypse, "Monsterpocalypse Now", introduced the faction "Empire of the Apes".
  • Subverted in Dungeons and Dragons: Monkey Bees. Monkey Bees◊
  • Doctor Silverback, from the Champions Universe (and brought over to Champions Online), is a superhumanly-intelligent gorilla.

Theater
  • Subverted, inevitably, in The Hairy Ape. The ape in question, upon being released from its cage, kills the main character. It's Eugene O'Neill, what do you expect?

Video Games
  • A ridiculous number of videogame mascots are apes or monkeys of some sort: The mascot for the rhythm action game Samba de Amigo, the cast of Super Monkey Ball, and Donkey Kong, among others.
  • Ape Escape.
  • A monkey drives and conducts the train in Animal Crossing.
  • In Baldurs Gate, the canonical ending for Jan Jansen (spoiler tagged for obtrusive wall of text):
    • Jan Jansen's life following his association with CHARNAME was typically convoluted, the barest of details hidden amidst his half-truths and whole lies. According to his published memoirs, "A Jansen in Every Port," after a short prison term for monkey smuggling, he returned to his first love... monkey smuggling. This led to the now infamous Gibbon Riot of '72, a tumultuous and altogether unclean event that seemed to center on the estate of the Shadow Thief Vaelag. Jan would deny that he had planned the downfall of the rogue, but he was unable to explain what practical application he had intended for a horde of knife-wielding simians. Nevertheless, the death of the admittedly disliked and generally suspect Vaelag could not be attributed to the young gnome. Strangely enough, Jan had alibis for each and every second of the day in question, and what a day it must have been! Relatives from across the Realms came forward to say that he had stopped in for tea and turnips. At his later wedding to Lissa, Jan was asked how he managed to be in so many places at once, and yet still so far from the scene of the crime. "Well," Jan would say, "when you have that many monkeys, anything is possible."
  • In Bible Adventures, one level of Noah's Ark had you gathering a pair of monkeys; another level had monkeys throwing fruit and coconuts for you to scavenge.
  • Contact features a white-furred monkey that turns out to be the antagonists' Team Pet.
  • The reason why Crunch wouldn't take off his NV Helmet in Crash: Mind over Mutant. "Sooo awesome! Monkeys!"
  • Deus Ex describes the Grays as (possibly) being genetically engineered hairless monkeys. This doesn't stop them from being the most annoying enemies in the game. Note that these are psychic monkeys.
  • The EarthBound series has more than a barrel full of monkeys factoring into the plot. In the part of the game where you control Jeff, a bubblegum-chewing monkey is the key to getting across the river; another point in the game requires the party to give and receive gifts from several monkeys to proceed. And in the sequel, Mother 3, the third chapter of the game is played entirely by a monkey.
    • His name is Salsa. Fassad makes him his slave by threatening his girlfriend (whom Kumatora dubs the "love monkey") and then fitting him with an electric collar.
  • One of the main villains on Earthworm Jim is Professor Monkeyforahead, a mad scientist who shares his head with an upside-down monkey. The monkey's name is Monkey Professorforahead.
  • In The Elder Scrolls series, the Imga and the Tang Mo are two monkey races, respectively from Valenwood and Akavir.
  • Far Cry has mutated monkeys known as Trigen that run straight at you, can leap at you from more than a dozen feet away, and can kill you in just 2 or 3 hits. They were widely considered Demonic Spiders and an unexpected Genre Shift from the game's previously tactical combat against human mercenaries.
  • A Side Quest in Final Fantasy X-2 involves acting as matchmaker for a group of lonely, single monkeys.
  • Freedom Force vs. the 3rd Reich has the Kill-a-Rillas, half-human, half gorilla experiments created by Bliztkrieg.
  • Apparently, the developers of God Hand decided that the hilarity of gorillas was only increased by training them in the art of Lucha Libre, and was increased to nearly fatal levels by throwing in groin shots complete with a laugh track. It worked, mostly due to the fact that the whole game is so absurd that they don't seem too weird in comparison.
  • Monkeys feature heavily in an early part of The Legend Of Zelda Twilight Princess, and show up later. One subboss is even a baboon (acting under pest control).
    • Likewise it's necessary to rescue an innocent monkey from implied death in Majoras Mask, and in A Link To The Past, you need to pay a monkey to open a dungeon door for you.
      • A similar monkey appears in "Links Awakening" to perform essentially the same function... and to fight the Chain Chomp you happen to be walking.
  • Naturally, as they feature a lot in the Films, monkeys are all over Lego Indiana Jones.
  • One enemy in the Hard Man stage of Mega Man 3 is a robot monkey.
    • And of course, we have Buster Rod G., also from the Classic series, Spark Mandrill and Soldier Stonekong from the X series, Hanumachine from Zero, Purprill the Pseudoroid from ZX, and Data (the only good monkey from the list) from Legends.
  • Metal Gear Solid 3 included the minigame entitled "Snake VS Monkey". It's almost exactly what it sounds like. It's a Shout Out to Sony's Ape Escape series which, in return, featured a minigame in Ape Escape 3 called "Metal Gear Solid: Snake Escape", an Affectionate Parody of the MGS games.
    • Metal Gear Solid 4 has a monkey in the actual game - apparently the character it hangs out with wasn't "interesting enough" on his own. Fortunately Raiden's Motion Capture actor was pretty good at imitating a monkey, and Kojima liked the imitation enough that he decided to throw it in.
  • Metal Slug 3 allows the player to get a cute monkey armed with a deadly Uzi as a sidekick. Metal Slug 4, in the other hand, allows the player to transform into said cute machine gun-wielding monkey.
  • Monkey Island. Better yet, three-headed monkey.
  • In Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2!, one of the bonus missions involves the Ouendan helping a stuffed monkey and toy soldier who were accidentally thrown away return home. The BGM? The theme song to the 70's TV show, Monkey Magic.
  • A number of Pokemon are monkeys and other primates.
    • Ash has captured some of them in the anime: Primeape, Aipom (traded to Dawn and now an Ambipom), and Chimchar. The last one in particular is the fourth generation's Fire starter... while the Water-type is a penguin and the Grass-type starter is a turtle.
  • Speaking of enemy robomonkeys, the Kikis of the Sonic Adventure series.
    • There's also the robot monkey Coconuts featured in both Sonic 2 for the Genesis and a cartoon series that was (somewhat) based on it, as well as some of the Sonic-based comics.
  • System Shock 2 had monkeys with cryokinesis and pyrokinesis. And they were terrifying.
  • Thief: The Dark Project and Thief 2: The Metal Age include ApeBeasts among the Trickster's minions. In the second game, some of them have blowpipes.
  • Monkeys have become the de facto mascots of the Time Splitters game series. Time Splitters: Future Perfect included ninja monkeys, zombie monkeys, and cyborg monkeys (which the game describes as "Inevitable, really"). Multiplayer includes "Monkey Assistant" mode, in which the losing player is lent help by a pack of monkeys with rocket launchers.
  • The third world of Yoshi's Island is mainly inhabited by annoying monkeys called Grinders.
  • In Wario Ware: Touched, Kat and Ana adopt a monkey and call him Nunchuck.
  • Banjo Kazooie features a monkey named Konga, who returns in the sequel as a circus ringmaster.
  • The main reason for the character of Skrunch in Ratchet And Clank III: Up Your Arsenal. (In this case, a cyclopean alien monkey.)
    • And of course, the series wouldn't be complete without a gun that turns enemies into monkeys. Enemy robots? Cymbal banging monkeys.
  • The Sengoku Basara series has Keiji with his little monkey friend Yumekichi.
  • Subverted in Super Mario 64, where everything's worse with monkeys as Ukiki takes your hat.

Webcomics
  • Imagine suddenly finding a dojo in your room. Now see this Least I Could Do strip. See? Better.
  • A recurring villain (despite a brief Heel Face Turn) in It's Walky! is Monkey Master, a Humongous Mecha created by Head Alien. Monkey Master will take every opportunity to point out that he is in fact shaped more like an ape; at one point, Robin wrote the word "Munky" all over him in a split second just to goad him (or rather, at the time, her).
  • Dr. McNinja employs a gorilla named Judy as his secretary.
  • Some children have a monster in their closet. Max, from Bitmap World, has a monkey in his closet. Later in the comic, there's a whole storyline involving monkeys.
  • In Schlock Mercenary, various Terran species have been ascended to sapience. Of these, apes are prominently featured. Also elephants.
    • When the crew are going undercover in a circus,the ringmaster wants to know what a sentient elephant and an ape could do that would be impressive. Isn't it obvious?
  • EGS: Everything's better with monster gremlin monkeys!
  • Kismetropolis: featured a tryptophane trip involving a recipe for Monkey Bread.
    Jamie: There's NO monkey in the monkey bread. Swear. Guys? Seriously! No monkey!
  • In Dominic Deegan, Everything's Better With Fire Monkeys.
  • Gwynn from Sluggy Freelance owns several monkeys who are enchanted to attack and humiliate anyone who irritates her. The monkeys themselves don't appear that often, but a lot of mileage is gotten out of the gag that the other characters pretend "monkeys" is Gwynn's nickname for her breasts. "I've done something bad with my monkeys (...) If we don't do something my monkeys are going to be all over her in front of everyone (...) be on the lookout for my monkeys and grab them if you see them. They could pop up anywhere."
  • My Roommate Is An Elf. Glen, Griswold's Familiar, is a talking monkey. He plays dm for the roleplaying games.
  • Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal uses a monkey with Hitler's face as part of a proof that fiction is stranger than truth.

Web Original
  • Purple Monkey from lonelygirl15, the purple monkey puppet.
  • Never one to miss a comics trope, The Descendants has recurring character Lucian the Ape Knight and has had some one shot demonic baboons.
  • Karl Pilkington's "Monkey News" from The Ricky Gervais Show.
    Ricky: "Ohhh, Chimpanzee that! MONKEY NEWS!"
  • Bruno, Vatsy's bodyguard/handyman/gopher in Vatsy and Bruno, is a chimp. Subverted somewhat in that, unlike most chimp characters, he's pragmatic, stoic, and content. To quote the work:
    He’d found that a level tone, an open stance, a patient mind and a large-bore double-barreled shotgun solved most problems almost effortlessly. His philosophy could be almost described as Taoism, if Taoism had a little-known subclause about the prudent use of firearms and arson.
  • Well not everything is better with monkeys, as the end of this Nightmare Fuel ed video should prove: [2]
  • In Doctor Steel's propaganda video, "Building a Utopian Playland", Dr. Steel talks about his plans for world domination, then distracts his audience with a monkey puppet, saying, "Now... who wants to see the dancing monkey!"

Western Animation
  • In the American Dad episode 'Stan of Arabia part 2' Stan is at the American embassy trying to secure his wife's release from prison but unfortunately had renounced his citizenship earlier. Trying to explain he says it is a funny story and is met with a number of monkey themed scenarios from an official who thought that a funny story must naturally involve 'nature's clowns'. Eventually the official says very seriously that Stan's wife is in real trouble, only to have a monkey jump on screen and flit about, causing the official to crack up.
  • Avatar The Last Airbender has Momo, a flying lemur Mix And Match Critter, for comic relief and as the Team Pet.
  • In Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot the CEO of the company that created the titular boy robot had a sidekick/business partner who was a sarcastic talking monkey. Voiced by ''The Drew Carey Show's'' Mimi, no less.
  • Camp Lazlo.
  • Captain Simian And The Space Monkeys.
  • Talking about Disney, Chip And Dale Rescue Rangers has a variety of primates at hand, too, ranging from chimpanzees (Heebie and Jeebie in "An Elephant Never Suspects") to a gorilla (Kookoo in "Gorilla My Dreams").
  • Clerks The Animated Series: Jay and Silent Bob decide to get a monkey. When asked why, Jay replies "To teach it to smoke. Duh." In another episode, Jay announces that they have "decided we need more gorillas in our empty lives", and they free the gorillas from the fair across the road from the Quik Stop. The gorillas proceed to attack everyone in sight. ("Oh no! Caitlyn!" "Except Caitlyn Bree and Dan Whiffler who are having sex in a car!")
  • Danny Phantom had one episode with the near extinct fictional Purple Back Gorilla named Samson. Later revealed to be a female, Samson played a part in the plot by kicking the main villain's ass.
  • Let's not forget the "Dial M For Monkey" shorts on Dexters Laboratory, where one of Dexter's test animals is secretly a super-powered crime fighter.
  • Dora The Explorer has a monkey, Boots, as a Sidekick.
  • The Fairly Oddparents, "Abra-Catastrophe" flips the entire cartoon's universe into one populated with monkeys as the dominant species, complete with an alternate, monkey-and-banana-centric credits sequence.
    • "You know, if it weren't for the fact that all of this is historically accurate, I would think that someone was making up incredibly lame puns"
      • This is specifically in response to a history lesson about how the "Founding Alpha Males" signed the "Declarapetion of Independance", but there are more ape related puns. Many, many more.
  • In a few episodes of Family Guy, it was shown Chris had an evil monkey in his closet. No one else believed him. It was apparently one of the writers' favorite running gags.
  • George Of The Jungle in both movie and animated form had George's best friend/"brother" as "an ape named Ape."
  • In Get Ed, the word "monkey" is used as slang for "cool".
  • Hanna-Barbera worked this trope handily during the 60s and 70s.
    • The Herculoids had a rock ape named Iggu.
    • Space Ghost's sidekicks, Jan and Jayce, had a monkey named Blip as their sidekick.
    • Magilla Gorilla, which, in addition to its own primate star, had a secondary cartoon called The Adventures of Peter Potamus and So-So. So-So, Peter's sidekick, was — you guessed it - a monkey.
    • Beagley Beagley and The Great Grape Ape
    • The Super Friends' Wonder Twins had a monkey named Gleek, effectively making Gleek, as Blip before him, the sidekick's sidekick. Technically, Gleek is indeed a space monkey, but not, as far as we know, a Killer.
  • The OTHER ''Ghostbusters'' cartoon (no, not that one) had an antropomorphic ape called Tracy.
  • I.R. Baboon in I Am Weasel, though he's a literal Butt Monkey.
  • Invader Zim features The Angry Monkey Show and GIR's Monkeydance most notably, but just you try to find even one episode that doesn't feature monkeys as a sound effect.
  • At the end of Johnny Bravo's opening theme, the titular character exclaims "Do the monkey with me!" and the cast does a monkeydance with him.
  • In Justice League Unlimited episode "Dead Reckoning" Gorilla Grodd reveals his master plan is to use Gorilla City's cloaking shield generator to produce a carrier wave that will magically turn every man, woman and child on Earth into an...ape. Lex Luthor and the other supervillains were less than amused.
    • And by "less than amused," we mean "Luthor shot him in the face."
    • Even the heroes were underwhelmed; Wonder Woman's response upon seeing her transformation: "Oh, come ON!"
  • Monkeys and apes are a recurring joke throughout Kim Possible, with them being the source of Ron's mystical kung-fu powers (which usually don't work), as well as his greatest fear and the source of power of his personal archenemy, Monkey Fist. Two words: monkey ninjas.
    • There was also Josh Mankey, a character that Ron formed a Conspiracy Theory around, based on his last name being one vowel away from "monkey". And Camp Wannaweep, the camp Ron went to as a young boy, had a chimpanzee for a mascot. Ron was forced to bunk with said mascot, and this is where he developed the phobia.
  • King Kong had his own cartoon series that was produced by Rankin-Bass. Yes, THAT Rankin-Bass
  • My Gym Partner's A Monkey uses a monkey (not to mention a whole cast of Funny Animals) to spin the Fish Out Of Water trope.
  • The Powerpuff Girls' first nemesis is an evil monkey called Mojo Jojo.
  • The Simpsons has used the primate gag a couple dozen times over its long run, most delightfully when Homer becomes the leader of a Stonemasons-style secret organization and decided that the best way to use his new-found power was to get a bunch of monkeys together and re-enact the Civil War. Of course there's also Mr. Teeny, Krusty's cigar-smoking chimp sidekick. And there's that time Flanders's house got taken over by a radioactive baboon. And... well, there's a lot of examples.
  • The enemies in Skunk-Fu are monkey ninja.
  • In an episode of South Park, a lawyer implores the jury to "look at the silly monkey" during his closing argument. The jury (minus the one whose head explodes) rule in favour of his client.
    • Plus there was that monkey Cartman had that killed Kenny...
    • And Dr. Mephesto's (genetically engineered?) four- and five-assed monkeys.
  • Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force Go!, an Affectionate Parody of the Action Hero Five Man Band, but with monkeys. And although they're the heroes of the show, they technically are killer monkeys from space.
  • Tak and the Power of Juju had the chief of the tribe act like a monkey under a voodoo curse.
  • Optimus Primal of Transformers: Beast Wars. The whole Optimus-Gorilla vs. Megatron-Tyrannosaurus Rex thing was, of course, in reference to King Kong.
  • Titan Maximum features Leon, the monkey janitor, as the pilot of the green fighter that makes up the giant mecha's left leg. Inverted in that Leon is usually shown reacting with a calm world-weariness to the antics of his human teammates.
  • Xiaolin Showdown has the Monkey Staff, which turns humans into monkeys.
  • B-B-B-BERSERKER B-B-B-BABOON! The only thing Toads fear. With good reason.
  • "STEVE!"
  • Ren And Stimpy had the Baboon as a recurring character.
  • A monkey participated in many of the Prometheus and Bob shorts on Kablam.

Other
  • MAD Magazine had a one-panel feature for a brief period of time called "Monkeys Are Always Funny". The article consisted of a serious, often tragic picture from real life with a monkey digitally added in — and yes, for some reason the monkey was always funny.
  • The greatest TV pitch in history: "She's the Pope. He's a chimp. They're cops."
  • Stand-up comedian Dane Cook in his act claims having a pet monkey would be better than sex, or being a part of a heist...with the monkey driving the van.
    • Monkeys are a fairly common theme in Ross Noble's comedy as well, particularly on his 'Unrealtime' DVD.
  • As they're all improvised it gets hard to really pin it down, but around 30% of Ross Nobles shows will involve monkeys.
  • The Penn Jillette radio show had a regular feature called "Monkey Tuesday", in which monkey news and monkey-related discussion would open the show, and callers would call in with stories of their personal encounters with primates. It all started with a story about a monkey and a dwarf (part 1 near the end, part 2, and next week it was a trend.

Real Life
  • Do a search by interest on any popular blog site for monkey and another word. Hit counts are highest for "mad monkey sex" or "mad monkey love" or "crazy monkey sex" or "crazy monkey love". What? This editor was bored that day.
    • Some species of monkeys take promiscuity to a very high level. Brother Sister Incest does occur. Plus there's the whole gorillas/harems thing.
      • The "monkeys" most often mentioned in terms of sex studies are the Bonobo apes. They use sex as recreation and it is not limited to same-gender pairing. They've also exhibited rudimentary fetishes.
  • Monkeys are being trained to assist disabled people.
  • The monkey god Hanuman was named chairman of an Indian business school. No, seriously.
  • Due to the depressing nature of the credit crunch, the front page of the BBC website currently reads "Sick of hearing about stock slides? Never fear, we have the solution - monkey waiters."◊
  • The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim introduced an unofficial mascot in 2000 which they dubbed the "Rally Monkey". It began as a gag by two of the team's video board operators who would play a clip from Ace Ventura: Pet Detective of a white-haired capuchin monkey jumping up and down with the words "Rally Monkey" superimposed over it when the Angels were losing against the San Francisco Giants by one run in the bottom of the ninth. They then scored two runs to win the game. The Rally Monkey became so popular among fans that the Angels hired an actual monkey to shoot clips to be used in later seasons, and the Monkey made its reappearance in 2002, the year the Angels won the World Series.
  • Oh dear, the Lake Superior State University has added the word to their "List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness", specifically because of this trope. I think we broke it [3].
  • The Daily Show had a lot of fun with this one in relation to Congress' "monkey bite bill".
    Jon: Boy, we've all been there. I just inherited $45,000. I could get a few years of tuition for my kid...or a monkey. I don't know, my cat's pretty dirty...
  • The late Michael Jackson's best friend, Bubbles The Chimp.
  • A man in China trained some pet monkeys in rudimentary Tae Kwon Do to entertain passersby. In December 2009 the monkeys turned on him. You can't make this up. (for the record, the trainer overcame the monkeys and restrained them before they could do any real harm)

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